In continuing coverage, Medscape (1/14, Melville) reports that a report from Mental Health America called “Parity or Disparity, the State of Mental Health in America 2015” reveals a “significant shortage of psychiatrists” in the US, particularly for youngsters, a need that will only increase under the Affordable Care Act. Renee Binder, MD, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association, said, “The country will need an additional 30,000 child psychiatrists to meet the needs generated by the expanded coverage under the ACA, and we currently only have 8000, so we need to triple the number of child psychiatrists.”

Meanwhile, “the APA has been promoting new systems of collaborative care, with psychiatrists working together with other specialties, including primary care [clinicians] and pediatricians,” she added.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

The Los Angeles Times (1/14, Kaplan) “Science Now” blog reports that research published in BMJ indicated that people who “worked at least 49 hours a week were up to 13% more likely to engage in ‘risky alcohol use’ compared with those who were on the job for only 35 to 40 hours a week.” Investigators came to this conclusion after analyzing “data on more than 430,000 people.”

Bloomberg News (1/14, Cortez) reports on the BMJ study, and also points out that “in a 2012 survey by the” CDC, “71 percent of Americans said they’d had a drink in the past year, while about 56 percent had done so in the past month.” Bloomberg News adds that “there are a small and growing number of people who drink excessively at one sitting, and it’s not clear why, said George Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.” Koob said, “We’re seeing a higher number of drinks per individual.” He added, “What’s growing is the intensity of drinking in a single bout. We are concerned about that. We haven’t figured out how to address it.”

Related Links:

— “Workaholics are more likely to drink too much alcohol, study says,” Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, January 13, 2015.

USA Today (1/14, Zoroya) reports that the number of suicides by active-duty US military personnel “last year was virtually unchanged from 2013, remaining at historically high numbers for a fifth year,” according to Pentagon statistics. Meanwhile, the Army “reported a decline” for the second consecutive year.

Related Links:

— “2014 military suicides stay high for 5th year straight,” Gregg Zoroya, USA Today, January 13, 2015.

On the front of its Personal Journal section, the Wall Street Journal (1/13, D1, Beck, Subscription Publication) reports in “Health Journal” that a growing number of pediatrician practices are incorporating mental health clinicians as part of integrated care. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that some 21 percent of US youngsters and teens may have a diagnosable substance use or mental health issue.

Related Links:

— “http://www.wsj.com/articles/tot-therapy-psychiatrists-join-up-with-pediatricians-1421105535,” Melinda Beck, Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2015.

The AP (1/13, Daly) reports that the House of Representatives, “for the second time in five weeks…has approved a bill aimed at reducing a suicide epidemic that claims the lives of 22 military veterans every day.” HR 5059, the Clay Hunt SAV Act, “a bill named for…a 26-year-old veteran who killed himself in 2011, was approved unanimously” yesterday. The measure “would require the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department to submit to independent reviews of their suicide prevention programs and would establish a website to provide information on mental health services available to veterans.”

The Washington Times (1/13, Klimas) reports that this same bill “stalled in the Senate last month” over the “objections by retired Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, who said the $22 million price tag was too high for a bill that duplicated already-existing programs.” This time, however, the measure is anticipated “to easily reach the president’s desk.”

Related Links:

— “HOUSE AGAIN BACKS BILL TO LOWER SUICIDE RATE AMONG VETS,” Matthew Daly, Associated Press, January 12, 2015.

Medscape (1/13, Osterweil) reports that according to a study published online Jan. 12 in the journal Pediatrics, youngsters “referred to a specialist because of behavioral problems may have undiagnosed fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).” The study found that “among 547 foster or adopted children referred to a children’s mental health center for behavioral issues, 156 met criteria for FASD, but 125 (80.1%) had never been diagnosed with prenatal exposure to alcohol.” And, of the 31 kids “who had been diagnosed with prenatal alcohol exposure before referral, 10 had a change in their diagnosis to a different disorder within the fetal alcohol spectrum, which represents a 6.4% misdiagnosis rate, the investigators said.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

In the New York Times (1/8) “Well” blog, psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman, MD, wrote, “Because some patients” with depression “respond better to psychotherapy than medication — and vice versa — or prefer one type of treatment over another, we need to learn much more about how various types of psychotherapy compare with medications clinically as well as at the level of the brain.”

At the moment, however, “we don’t have a clue, in part because of the current research funding priorities from the National Institutes of Mental Health, which strongly favor brain science over psychosocial treatments.” Nevertheless, “we owe it to our patients to try to answer” such “important questions.”

Related Links:

— “To Treat Depression, Drugs or Therapy?,” Richard A. Friedman, M.D., New York Times, January 8, 2015.

Reuters (1/10, Moloney) reports on the state of mental healthcare in Haiti five years after a devastating earthquake that killed 200,000. As it was before the Jan. 12, 2010 quake, the country still has no mental health system. There are only 10 psychiatrists in the impoverished Caribbean nation to serve a population of some 10 million, and most people with serious mental illnesses are not receiving any mental healthcare whatsoever. Because so many Haitians believe that mental illness is a form of demonic possession, they turn to voodoo priests for treatment.

Related Links:

— “Voodoo priests, doctors on frontline of Haiti’s mental healthcare,” Anastasia Moloney, Reuters, January 9, 2015.

The Baltimore Sun (1/10, Mirabella) reported that IBM’s Watson computer system is being used by US Department of Veterans Affairs physicians “to help…treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.” Recently, the VA “launched a two-year pilot program to study new ways of searching electronic medical records and medical literature.” The pilot program, “which will rely on simulations but use actual patient records, is intended to evaluate how the IBM technology can speed up clinical decisions.”

Related Links:

— “IBM’s cognitive computer Watson could use skills to help treat veterans with PTSD,” Lorraine Mirabella, The Baltimore Sun, January 12, 2015.

The Hill (1/9, Matishak) reported that legislation to help prevent suicides among veterans “will likely reach the House floor next week, far sooner than lawmakers had predicted.” The bill, which is titled the “Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act,” sailed through the House Veterans Affairs Committee after being blocked by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) at the end of the previous Congressional session.

Related Links:

— “Veteran suicide bill gets fast lane to House floor,” Martin Matishak The Hill, January 9, 2015.